Tag Archives: The Union

Ordinary, Scones

JamJar Café

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Bridge of Allan is the kind of Belgravia of central Scotland. A favourite hangout for the well off to live and play so there are lots of hotels, cafés, bars etc. Today we decided to stop off at the JamJar Café.  A nice day though not quite warm enough to sit outside on their pavement patio area. Inside though it is toasty no matter what the weather. A couple of big log burning stoves blazing away all day. It has the atmosphere of a well run but relaxed bistro and you can get pretty much anything you want from Sunday lunch to a snack. Internal view at the Jamjar Café, Bridge of Allan

Needless to say we were after the scones so I got my usual fruit one and Pat got a savoury cheese one. Since our last post, of course, the election has come and gone .. and what an election. The media are having a field day trying to figure out what happened with the loss of three party leaders within as many hours. Scotland, typically some might say, has gone off on its own in a direction almost diametrically opposed to England. It managed to get PoshDave returned with an overall majority thus proving that polls are not worth the paper they are written on.

Again typically, Scotland seems to be getting blamed for all the ensuing problems. Bringing down Labour , bringing down LibDems and, for all I know, bringing down UKIP. Though I’m not sure that could actually be classified as a problem. NastyNige bleating on about his 4 million votes being worth only one seat whereas the SNP’s 1.5 million  votes gets them 56 seats. Of course, conveniently forgetting that the SNP only stood in 59 seats compared to over 600 for UKIP.

Statistics

However, the most interesting statistic to emerge was the one that determined that if every single voter in Scotland had voted Labour (or any other party) it would not have made the slightest difference to the result. That for me encapsulates ‘the Scottish problem’. When it comes to voting, Scotland may as well not bother. Except maybe this time with virtually the whole country turning yellow, it might be different. Emphasis on ‘might’.

Anyway PoshDave and his classmates can pretty well do as they want now but I suspect that most of England will not be happy with the results. That, along with the EU, the Union, and him being unpopular within his own party, may turn out to be the least of his problems. “He’s gonna catch a cold, from the ice inside his sole” as Christina Perri would say. A scone at the Jamjar Café, Bridge of AllanIt will be fascinating to see how it all pans out.

Meanwhile the scones in the JamJar Café were consumed with varying degrees of indifference. Pat didn’t finish her cheese one and although I finished both of mine (I got two because they said that they were a little bit small but they probably just wanted rid of them) it was only because I was peckish. They did not seem fresh and certainly not produced on the day.

Daughters of Bridge of Allan

Everything else looks good in the JamJar, and it’s busy so they are obviously not depending on their scones. On the plus side log burning stoves are great. The service was efficient if not overly friendly. The daughters of Bridge of Allan are probably forced to work here so they can experience ‘the real world’. No passwords for the wifi, it is just there, brill! So why is the website so useless?

FK9 4HR      tel: 01786 831616      www.jamjarcafe.co.uk

Ordinary, Scones

Callendar House

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Callendar House is a great Georgian chateauesque building in the centre of Falkirk. It’s history goes way back to the 14th century when it was built for the Livingstone family. However, since then it has played host to many historical figures including  Mary, Queen of Scots, Oliver Cromwell, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Queen Victoria. The tearoom we see today is part of the restoration after the house was partially demolished by Cromwell’s forces in the mid 17th century.

Affinity

I have a particular affinity to this place because my dad was head forester on Callendar Estate and as a young lad I regularly had to accompany him to visit the offices which were in the west wing of the house. At that time the house and its policies were very private with few people ever getting to go anywhere near it. The riders and hounds for fox hunts always started off from the front door. It was eventually taken over by Falkirk Council in 1963. Since then it  has been run as a public amenity for the people of the town. Interior view at Callendar House, Falkirk

The turbulent times in the past brought about by Cromwell and the Young Pretender are not all that far removed from what we are witnessing in GE2105 with only a few days left before polling. All the Unionists parties seem to be hellbent on neutralising Scotland’s MP’s in Parliament without, apparently, realising the irony of what they are doing. If Scotland is effectively disenfranchised then Scotland, to all intents and purposes, is a foreign country .. end of Union. The Union will not be preserved by ignoring the settled will of one of it’s constituent countries. Hoary old sceptic that I am, even I cannot imagine that they are all as thick as that. England does not ‘need’ Scotland it sure as hell needs Scotland more than Scotland needs England.

No staff

We were here for the Fabrizio Gianni photographic exhibition which was great. Of course we soon ended up gravitating towards the tearoom which is absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, however, it has ‘council’ written all over it .. the epitome of inefficiency. A scone at Callendar House, FalkirkAlthough it could easily be decked out with tasteful tables and chairs that you can buy for buttons at an auction, instead it has the ‘council’ conference style furniture which  jars grotesquely with the surroundings. There is a fantastic fireplace .. but no hint of a fire? When we arrived there were no staff either although someone eventual appeared from some distant room. It was a very odd atmosphere.

The staff were friendly but had to work very hard fetching everything from afar.  They advertise afternoon tea with freshly baked scones and cream. However our scones were certainly not baked that day, the worst scones we have had in some time. We were also told that they “don’t do cream”. What with the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies, Falkirk has become a major tourist attraction. C’mon Falkirk Community Council, you can do better than this with such a splendid location!

FK1 1YR            tel: 01324 503770                    Callendar House